The Archbishop of Philadelphia, Cardinal Justin Rigali, announced in a statement on Tuesday the suspension of 21 priests following examination of files implicating them in sexual abuse of minors.

The step initiated was in response to a grand jury report that was released last month where 37 priests were suspected of widespread child molestation.

These have been difficult weeks since the release of the Grand Jury Report: difficult most of all for victims of sexual abuse, but also for all Catholics and for everyone in our community," stated Cardinal Rigali.

"I wish to express again my sorrow for the sexual abuse of minors committed by any members of the Church, especially clergy. I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime," he further added.

All the reported 37 cases were subjected to a review under the Pennsylvania Crimes Code, the Child Protective Services Act, the "Essential Norms" from the Charter for the Protection of Young People of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Archdiocese's Standards for Ministerial Behavior and Boundaries.

Apart from the 21 recently announced orders of suspension, three priests had already been suspended after the report was released in February.

The Grand Jury Report, presented on 21st January, 2011, contained a graphic description of instances of sexual abuse by priests of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The report also indicated that the abuse was "known, tolerated, and hidden by high church officials, up to and including the Cardinal himself."

It also stated that there are many abusers who are still on duty in the Archdiocese with "open access" to new young prey.

If true, the Catholic church is grossly responsible for the cover-up and people should go to jail.

The story does not mention any details about the victims, so we’ll have to assume the overwhelming majority of the victims were boys.

If that is true, we need to be very clear that the accused, if guilty, were first and foremost NOT priests but homosexual men, that they betrayed their teachings and their positions of authority by giving in to their homosexual desires.

We must also begin to make the assumption that at least some of these men chose their professions in order to facilitate their long-range objective which was not to be priests but to prey upon victims of their homosexual desire.

And we’re supposed to allow openly homosexual men to be leaders in the Boy Scouts and to take our children on camping trips?

I really doubt the GJ report was referring to Cardinal Rigali as the cardinal who knew about the abuse. He's very pious and conservative and hasn't been in Philly very long, so it's entirely possible the report is talking about the previous cardinal.

During the war in ‘Nam a few occupations were GUARANTEED a pass and not be drafted.
Among them were CLERGY, and SCHOOLTEACHERS!!
Now, boys and girls, what sort of ‘men’ would be attracted to these jobs??
Now they have been there for a long time, and they protect each other—and RECRUIT MORE!!

BTW—What’s all this done to our SCHOOLS???
What”s it done to our CHURCHES??
IS ANYBODY SURPRISED BOTH INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED?

“On the day the grand jury report was released, Cardinal Justin Rigali issued a brief response saying ‘there are no archdiocesan priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.’

Six days later, he hired lawyer Gina Maisto Smith, a former sex crimes prosecutor in the District Attorney’s Office, to review the personnel files of all priests named in the grand jury’s report.

Smith’s preliminary review served as the basis for deciding which priests should be put on leave.”

I had thought that this was acted on a couple of years ago when the big scandal erupted. It appears it wasn’t.

Cardinals and Bishops who have hidden this and allowed it to go on need to be looked at. Are they too homosexuals. The Prince’s of the Church are picked from it’s Priests and it stands to reason many of them are also gay. It would appear that the rot is way down into the barrel.

The worst part of this thing is that every priest is made suspect by the actions of these homosexuals.

Thanks for the link to the Philadelphia Inquirer - it seems that Cardinal Justin Rigali was following the usual path that has been the cause of the problems in the past.

This deceptive route was further confirmed by his initial denial that any of the priests were active on the day of the GJ report.

Terence McKiernan, president of Bishop Accountability.org, which tracks clergy abuse cases around the nation, called Rigali’s response “an act of desperation, not transparency,” that was “forced on [the cardinal] by the Philadelphia grand jury report.”

It does seem very difficult to find anyone in the hierarchy that will do the right thing - the curse of Sodom and Gomorrah comes to mind.

It seems that there is not even one righteous person in that place which has now been tranferred from the Jordan to the Tiber

“A Delaware man on Monday became the latest alleged sex abuse victim to sue the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, contending negligence by archdiocesan leaders enabled a priest to molest him when he was a teen, and that church victim-assistance employees were unresponsive when he sought their help.

Philip Gaughan, 31, said he decided to come forward in the hope that doing so might he help other victims.

‘I don’t want anybody to have to go through what I’ve had to go through,’ Gaughan said at a news conference outside City Hall, where he was flanked by his wife, his father and his lawyers.

‘No child should have to go through this ever again.’

Gaughan’s lawsuit mirrors one filed last month, after three priests and a teacher were charged with abusing children and a grand jury vilified the archdiocese’s attempts to reform in the years since the scandal first broke.

The lawsuit accused the Rev. John E. Gillespie of molesting Gaughan between 1994 and 1997, when the teen was a sacristan at Our Lady of Calvary Church, and Gillespie was its pastor.

And it contends archdiocesan leaders are guilty of conspiracy and fraud for ignoring signs of abusive behavior and being unresponsive to victims.

According to a 2005 grand jury report, Gillespie kept his post as pastor even after admitting to church leaders as early as 1994 that he had abused children. He died in 2008.

The archdiocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

"There are stories in the news every day about government school teachers sexually abusing children....and..it seems most are married. "

Exactly..sexual deviancy is everywhere, so why would you expect people who are deprived of normal sexual behavior to not try to "hide it under the rug" so to speak...which explains why Priests seem to be over represented in the population as a whole for abuse. It is sad really. I hate to see this at all. Stop making men do that which is completely unnatural and meddling in God's design. It's against all human decency to expect such prisoner outside the prison behavior. I think it's a sin when anyone gets hurt because of man's meddling. Please do something about it, rather than excusing it.

Agree totally. However rather than making assumptions, there should be full truth telling, without regard to political correctness.

Lets all learn a new word - ephebophilia  sex with post-pubescent young people, almost always males  priests are rarely guilty of pedophilia except in the subset - ephebophilia - Which may point to a dominant gay subculture in the celibate Catholic Priesthood, which just might be a good argument for the return to active ministry of heterosexual married priests.

Actually, they need to stop spiritualizing the Bible, and read it from a natural, litteral, historical, grammatical point of view.

Then they would find out that celibacy is unbiblical, starting out with God declaring it is not good for man to be alone in Genesis.

1 Tim 3:1The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for Gods church?

A massive Homo Pedo Porno ring...I say confiscate the buildings which are a cover for this criminal enterprise...Tear 'em down or sell 'em...

In the long term, that may well be where this is going.

Situations like have been used in the past as a pretext for a persecution of the Church. The Church as a whole is deemed culpable and any Catholic who defends it is therefore vilified as a facilitator and enabler of perversion. That's essentially what happened in France during the French Revolution. Corruption amongst a minority of the clergy was used as the excuse for a violent persecution of the Church itself.

I can see that eventually happening here.

Persecutes and foments hate against minorities such as homosexuals..........check!

Denies women the right to reproductive health care and the right to choose (abortion)...........check!

Molests boys and young men and then attempts to hide it........check!

Well, citizens.....isn't it time something was done about these Catholic criminals??

35
posted on 03/09/2011 6:31:16 AM PST
by marshmallow
("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

"Well, citizens.....isn't it time something was done about these Catholic criminals??"

No need to let the Church be devastated. How hard can this be to fix?

Yea..twenty-one brides for twenty-one "pappies"...and don't ride them long and put them out wet (abuse them)...duh. I just don't know how people can make these things so difficult..it's like men want to have problems to keep themselves from getting bored.

Harder than most people imagine and there's actually a message here for the Catholic hierarchy about the futility of some of the measures which they've supposedly enacted.

There has been a general assumption that after the enactment of the "Dallas Charter" of 2002 that everything was now OK. "Don't worry folks....we've instituted zero tolerance.....we'll clean up this mess!" However, the assumption that the simple enactment of some conference resolution by the bishops would solve the problem, always seemed naive to me.

Why?

Because long ago, the Church already had in place clear rules and regulations about the ordination of homosexual clergy and those rules were ignored. Why should we expect that one more set of rules would solve the issue?

As recent events in Philly have shown, they won't.

This problem won't be solved until the Church returns to actually following its own doctrine and the seminaries are straightened out. The current crop of homos must be flushed from the system and die off. Resolutions and declarations issued by the USCCB are just so much useless paper and these events in Philly may help them to see that.

43
posted on 03/09/2011 6:58:40 AM PST
by marshmallow
("A country which kills its own children has no future" -Mother Teresa of Calcutta)

I am not going to comment on your sheltered life..let's just say..they didn't come up with the saying "go pound sand" for nothing. Some people will hump a tree to get it off. And no..I'm not a perv, I just work in the real world..the medical field.

Actually, they need to stop spiritualizing the Bible, and read it from a natural, litteral, historical, grammatical point of view.

Why? So we can spend our lives in a never ending rationalization of why life, the universe in general, and God in particular, does not conform to our favorite interpretation of the Bible like Protestants do?

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